Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 22. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset is 4:55 for 9 hours 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 15 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1968, Apollo 5 lifts off carrying the first Lunar Module into space.
It’s sometimes the case, too often, regrettably, that in defending against accusations or litigation, a public institution will advance an argument that protects the institution but harms the public. That’s the situation with the City of Madison’s argument that absentee ballots are a privilege, not a right:
Gov. Tony Evers is pushing back against arguments Madison city officials made in a recent lawsuit contending they can’t be sued for failing to count nearly 200 mail-in ballots in 2024 because absentee voting is not a right but a privilege.
A group of Madison voters represented by the liberal law firm Law Forward sued city and county election officials in March over the city’s failure to count 193 absentee ballots cast during the 2024 presidential election.
The voters are accusing the former Madison clerk of disenfranchising their right to vote in a class-action lawsuit.
[…]A Dane County Circuit judge overseeing the lawsuit granted a motion from Evers earlier this month to file a brief that the governor’s attorney said would argue the Madison officials’ position “ignores longstanding state constitutional protections” and a state Supreme Court interpretation of the state law at issue that argues otherwise. Evers’ brief is due Jan. 23.
In recent filings, Witzel-Behl and Madison officials argue the voters’ constitutional protections were removed when they decided to vote absentee.
“The Complaint’s prefatory allegations in (the complaint) describe the right to vote as ‘fundamental’ and ‘sacred,’ and cite a century-old precedent that the right to vote ‘may not under our Constitution be destroyed or even unreasonably restricted.’ … These points are undoubtedly true. However, the manner in which Plaintiffs exercised their right to vote – by absentee ballot – took the process out of its core constitutional protection,” the officials argue. “When the absentee process unfortunately results in a vote not being counted, it is not a violation of a constitutional right.””
See Molly Beck, Evers pushes back against Madison argument in absentee ballot lawsuit, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 22, 2026.
Here we are: the City of Madison, to defend itself against litigation, argues for the effective disenfranchisement of 193 of its own voters.
Attorney Haas argues that the defense in the City of Madison’s legal brief is merely about the amount of damages (a monetary amount) that need to be paid in this case. Perhaps he thinks this is clever representation, but it’s closer to the British insult that sometimes one is ‘too clever by half.’ The affected voters will not see this defense as supportive of their voting rights and the majority of Madison residents will not see this defense as supportive of their voting rights. Only the opponents of absentee voting will find this defense supportive of their interests.
Note well: This is an occasion when a lawyer, representing a public client, undermines the rights of those that the public client is, itself, obligated to represent. Always a mistake, always a serious mistake, and always a mistake requiring a genuine remedy.
An immediate remedy would be for the City of Madison to withdraw its line of defense. A later remedy would be for a court to reject that defense if it is not withdrawn.
In other cases, a genuine remedy may require a public client to seek new in-house or outside counsel, and to remove officials who supported an egregious line of defense.
James Webb Space Telescope delivers ‘clearest infrared look’ of Helix Nebula: